


The Gods Thought Otherwise

by Liara_90



Category: RWBY
Genre: Airports, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, Lesbian Character, One Shot, POV Third Person, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 07:09:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7090933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/pseuds/Liara_90
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU. Winter Schnee is a defense contractor, and a freak snowstorm leaves her stranded at the airport. She's content to whittle away the hours at a bar, but Cinder Fall just happens to be looking for a drink.</p><p>Smut with a dash of character study.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gods Thought Otherwise

Winter Schnee was in an airport, alone.

Which airport in particular didn't really matter. When you spent so much of your life jetting from one capital to another they all kind of blurred together. The same overpriced food. The same duty free stores. The same masses of humanity - the hurried, the exhausted, the bewildered. Winter had reflected on the homogeneity of airports so many times that even _that_ train-of-thought occurred with little variation in every terminal she set foot in.

The only thing different here was the snow. An anomaly in the North Sea had sent a cold front crashing down on them, a freak snow storm closing down every airport in a hundred miles. Winter might have been in the highest membership class of a dozen different airlines, but she was resigned to the reality that there would be no triumph over this weather.

She could have tried returning to town, but she didn't fancy the two or three hours such a trip would no doubt take in these conditions, nor her odds finding a hotel against the tens of thousands of travelers who were similarly stranded. For the moment she was content to slowly kill the hours by the bar in the members lounge. One hand absent-mindedly thumbed the screen her BlackBerry, skimming dozens of emails from subordinates working late at their East Coast headquarters. The other lazily swirled a squat whiskey glass, liquid the color of molten gold lapping against cubes of ice. Winter had scarce few vices but bourbon was one she indulged in without guilt, a taste acquired from a General during their long discourses on Clausewitz and Jomini.

"My, my, Winter Schnee… drinking alone. _Whatever_ would your dear Father have to say about that?"

Winter kept her gaze focused on the rows of bottle behind the counter, her expression icily indifferent, not bothering to turn her head. She had no need to. She could pick out that aristocratic drawl over the cacophony of a thousand voices, it was as clear as a gunshot in the empty lounge. A voice smooth as mercury and about as dangerous. Winter pocketed her BlackBerry without a word, listening to the precise _clicks_ of heeled shoes on marbled floors.

"Ms. Fall," she finally said, her greeting devoid of warmth, as a woman sheathed in burgundy drew up beside her. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Just _Cinder_ , please," corrected the woman, though there was no umbrage in her voice. "And the pleasure comes from little more than serendipity."

"I very much doubt that," replied Winter, dryly. She finished her drink and caught the bartender's eye long enough to signal wordlessly for another.

"Bourbon on the rocks," noted Cinder, as another glass was placed before Winter.

"I was never really the piña colada type," Winter answered, taking a sip. It was no Booker’s, but for a bar in a European airport it would suffice.

"I didn’t think that you were," the other woman mused. "General Ironwood has fine tastes."

Winter's fingers curled around the glass just a _little_ tighter. She bit her tongue. Their dozen-odd encounters had confirmed that Cinder Fall was a fox, a trickster, a manipulator _par excellence_. Her ability to glean information from the tiniest of clues, to use her tongue as a weapon… she was _dangerous_. Her off-hand remark was just a reminder of the breadth of her knowledge, that what drink two colleagues shared in an office of the Pentagon's "E" Wing was no secret to her.

Cinder caught the bartender's attention and ordered effortlessly in the local tongue. The display of polyglotism elicited little more than a bemused expression on her companion's face. Winter herself was no stranger to foreign tongues. She'd learned her mother's French beside her father's English, the Latin of Virgil in the isolation of boarding school, mastered Russian and German by the time she'd earned her commission. After that her education had become much more… _eclectic_. Her Arabic was conversational in the Persian Gulf, her Pashto and Urdu both serviceable. But Winter had yet to find a language Cinder couldn't converse in with the ease of a native, though she tried not to let it bother her. Jealousy was unbecoming.

A glass of Château Rayas was placed deftly before Cinder, who took a moment to revel in the decadence of the drink. The world outside the bar counter might as well have been dead to the two women.

"I'm surprised you didn't take one of the company jets," said Cinder, referring to the First Class ticket that was nevertheless a downgrade for a Schnee. Winter checked her emotions, aware of the insinuation. Her _Father_ hadn't taken a commercial flight since the Reagan Administration.

"The SDC is sensitive to concerns of appearing to be profiteers," Winter replied, her tone conspicuously neutral. "As Western European democracies continue to reign in spending on defense procurement, it was considered prudent to downplay displays of conspicuous consumption." Or at least, that's what the email from PR had said. Winter was scarcely concerned about the comfort - years spent crisscrossing the Earth in the belly of a C-130 made even coach seem luxurious - but she _did_ have the prestige of her company to maintain.

"How considerate" replied Cinder, with an amused look in her eyes.

"And why are _you_ slumming it in the VIP lounge?"

"I may have a private jet but no more control over the weather than you. The snow is remarkably egalitarian."

Winter distantly noted that Cinder had side-stepped the question - there was scarcely a reason for her to be anywhere near the international terminal - but Winter was more than familiar with her cryptic nature. For a woman no doubt worth millions Cinder's life was a remarkable enigma, no small feat in the Information Age. Apart from a modest office on K Street she may as well have not existed. Even her line of work was a persistent mystery; Cinder refused to be defined as anything other than a 'consultant'. And if you needed to ask what kind of services she provided, then you weren't her clientele. 

"I trust the conference was productive for you?" asked Cinder, though the disinterest in her voice made it clear that the question was a mere formality.

"You wouldn't be fishing for insider information, would you?" Winter replied, with a ghost of a jest in her tone.

"Winter, my dear, I would never put you in such a position," answered Cinder, teasingly, as she took a sip of her wine. "And if I was looking for trade secrets I assure you I would have no need to be so blunt."

Winter shrugged a little, returning to her drink. "The Germans and Turks said _yes_ , the Baltics will submit a bid for co-financing within the week." She watched Cinder's face out of the corner of her eye, for a glimmer of surprise or excitement, for some modicum of leverage. The information would invariably leak out by week's end - there were simply too many people involved for it to remain secret for very long - but anyone in the defense industry should have been salivating at the prospect of a scoop.

There was, of course, no such excitement on Cinder's visage. It was impossible to attribute the lack of a reaction to either an unwavering poker face or mere foreknowledge of the facts. Knowing Cinder, it was likely both.

"The Paladin-290," mused Cinder, airily. "Between those and your Knights, one wonders what scraps will be left for the rest of the defense industry to fight over."

"Our niche is mechanized and autonomous warfighting systems," Winter answered. "I doubt we'll be putting Lockheed or Northrop out of business anytime soon."

"How charitable of you to consider them in the same league as the SDC." Winter couldn’t help but feel the faintest flicker of pride at Cinder's words. The Schnee Defense Conglomerate might have been a generations-old company but it was only under her management that its military systems division had taken off. A company which had mostly been the anonymous producer of intermediate components was now on every tongue from Canberra to Reykjavík.

"Removing the human component from war… one wonders if it should be made that easy." Cinder took another sip.

"Tolerance for casualties is only going to continue to diminish," replied Winter. "As expensive as a Paladin is, that cost is preferable to more coffins at Dover."

"If I didn't know better, I'd say your tone was scornful," noted Cinder, a small grin playing across her face. "Just think of how war may soon claim so fewer sons… or daughters."

Another barb, this one aimed at her decision to enlist. And a well-placed barb indeed, given that Winter had scarce few outlets to vent about her Father's reactions. But indifferent to the trap Winter followed the conversation in that direction, rather than wade into a murky debate on the sanitization of warfare.

"My Father ultimately came to accept my military service," began Winter, nursing her bourbon. "Even see it as an asset."

"And how fortunate it is for a defense contractor to be helmed by someone with actual service." That elicited a sympathetic grunt from Winter. Despite the billions of dollars in weapons they sold there was scarcely a trace of martial heritage to the Schnee name, not unless one went back to the battles of Hohenfriedberg and Roßbach, as her Father was occasionally so inclined.

Winter had broken traditions of both lineage and gender when she'd enrolled in the United States Military Academy, forgoing a degree from Yale or Princeton to become a second lieutenant in the Army. During her four years at West Point her visits home had been few and far between, and involved far more screaming and shattered glass than she believed befit a Schnee. The visits had dwindled even more after graduation, when her top-of-the-class rank gave her the pick of assignments. Few would have expected her to choose the deserts of Saudi Arabia over a cushy posting in Italy, but then again, very few people knew Winter Schnee.

"No military service in your past, Cinder?" asked Winter, anticipating the easy smile that played across the woman's lips.

"Nothing in uniform, no, though I have certainly been _of_ service," she replied. That sounded plausible enough, but Cinder lied too effortlessly, too flawlessly for anything she said to be taken as Gospel. Truth be told Winter wasn't even sure of Cinder's nationality - she spoke English with a faint drawl of the American South, but discreet inquiries in the region had produced nary a shred of evidence. "And to think that you were such a model officer before Langley sunk its talons in you… how _sad_."

It took all of Winter's self-control not to choke on her drink. That she had once been headhunted by the Central Intelligence Agency was a secret anyone watching closely could have deduced. She hadn't been officially discharged, merely 're-assigned' to a dozen-odd Department of Defense offices so obscure that verifying her presence in the byzantine bureaucracy would have been a Herculean labor. But _s-a-d_ just happened to be the acronym for the CIA's Special Activities Division, the Agency's paramilitary force which her assignment to should _definitely_ have remained a secret.

"Very sad," concurred Winter, neutrally. "That's what General Ironwood said. Now I spend my days lobbying Congressmen." Just a _hint_ of exasperation crept into her voice.

"And how's your score at the Army Navy Country Club?" teased Cinder, referring to the nine-hole course in Arlington that Winter did a disproportionate amount of her networking at. Winter refused to rise to the bait. Her lowest score was four under par - she didn't particularly care, but would never let it be said that she gave an undertaking anything less than her all.

They spent the next minute or so in silence, Winter staring glassy-eyed at the reflection of a TV screen, BBC World playing mutely behind them. As important as her work was, Winter could never _quite_ suppress the occasional flash of annoyances at the dressed-up play-dates that were a core part of her job, nor the resentment at the world for having forced her there. She commanded tens of thousands of workers and a budget of billions of dollars, producing the weapons that half the world’s militaries would be using for decades. It was important work, _consequential_ work, but a pale mockery of what she had envisioned her destiny to be.

“It is truly a tragedy that the military was never able to recognize your potential,” said Cinder, finally breaking the silence. She laid out her words like a spider’s web, though one Winter could well discern. “A combatant command, a spell with the Joint Chiefs, perhaps even a Cabinet office one day… you were destined for great things, Winter.”

Winter snorted. “I think I’ll change our heraldic motto to ‘ _Dis aliter visum_ '.” She drained the last of her glass.

“' _The gods thought otherwise_ ,’” translated Cinder, tilting her head back slightly as she did.

And just _how_ differently they had thought. Winter had done everything to break free of the tyranny of the stars, to pursue the destiny she desired. But when push came to shove it had all come to _nothing_. Her marksmanship tab had bee irrelevant to men afraid of putting a woman in the line of fire. Her ambition and performance had counted for little as she soon found herself being shuffled from one thankless desk job to another. She'd risen up through the ranks – that much was inevitable – but it soon became apparent that her Father would forever cast a shadow over her. He had power and money and connections, and while he hadn’t been able to prevent his eldest daughter from slipping away on a night bus he was nothing if not patient. She’d been forced to leave the Pentagon for the secrecy of Langley, when General Ironwood had confessed that even _he_ couldn't keep her Father from strangling her career. She'd thought herself _safer_ if not safe in the shadowy domain of the CIA, before he'd learned of _that_ secret, too. And he’d made it clear that he had no qualms of leaking her profession to the public should she continue her adolescent rebellion. With public service effectively closed off to her, she'd been forced to return to the company bearing her surname, the one she'd always been _supposed_ to lead. Her Father's revenge had been long, and circuitous, and indirect, but he had had it all the same.

“I should have guessed the _Aeneid_ to have been your poem," mused Cinder, reflecting on the quote. "I’m afraid my tastes run more Hellenic than Roman… I’ve been making my way through the fragments of Sappho as of late.” The lyric poet of Lesbos, from whose life the word ‘lesbian’ found its etymology. Winter almost snorted – was this Cinder Fall’s idea of flirting? “Though I will confess a weakness for _The Metamorphoses_.”

“I’ve never had much time for Sapphic poetry,” said Winter, taking the bait more out of curiosity than hunger. “My light readings these days are mostly quarterly statements and GAO reports. _The Economist_ , if I’m lucky.”

Cinder’s mouth curled into a smile. “And how much poorer you are for it. Even the strongest among us need an indulgence now and then.” She gestured lazily with her hand to Winter’s emptied glass.

“And what does that make you, some lesser demon pushing vice and sin to claim my mortal soul?”

She distantly reveled at just how _easy_ it was to banter with Cinder, how smoothly every conversation with her seemed to flow. It was as if a dormant portion of her psyche was awakened, the part that still thought about literature and history and ruminated on her Fate. Two drinks had loosened her tongue enough to wax poetic but made her none the duller, and Cinder’s deftness just seemed to entice…

“Cinder! I finished moving everything to our room!” Cinder’s mouth remained opened for a fraction of a second, forming a retort which would now never pass her lips. Winter felt a flash of irritation course through her as their conversation was interrupted, as if there was a noisy child in the theater. She thought she spotted a matching emotion reflected on Cinder’s face.

“ _Emerald_ , dear, no need to shout,” chided Cinder, turning about with no hint of hurry. She retrieved her wine glass and raised it to her lips.

Winter turned to face the interloper a moment later. The woman couldn’t have been far into her twenties, athletic and beautiful, but neither her posture nor her tone suggested a sophisticated upbringing, and a trace of an accent was audible in her English. The black dress jacket and pants she wore looked professional enough, but her mint-green hair suggested she was not one of Cinder’s client-facing employees, nor did the tight-fitting crop top or the sandals on her feet.

“Oh… I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t realize you were with someone,” Emerald apologized, her tone now conspicuously formal. Her face was flush with embarrassment. It didn’t take a genius to see that she clearly _idolized_ Cinder, and in a manner no doubt transgressing the confines of professionalism.

“Not to worry, Emerald. I merely ran into Winter at the bar here.” Winter watched Emerald’s face closely, noting the absence of surprise or confusion on the minion’s face. Winter clearly needed no introduction to the woman. Emerald nodded politely in Winter's direction, before returning her attention to Cinder.

“But anyways I got most of our luggage back off the jet and into the suite, so if you’d like we could try to catch some rest before the snow’s cleared and…”

“Do you have a place to stay for the night?” asked Cinder, turning away from Emerald without so much as a dismissive wave.

Winter shrugged. “I wasn’t planning on sleeping,” she answered. It was very much the truth – she hopped across the Atlantic and the Pacific so regularly that she’d long given up on trying to adjust her circadian rhythms to the dictates of time zones. It was easier to simply _force_ herself to be awake whenever she needed to be, aided at most by a cup of black coffee.

Cinder _tsked_ like a disappointed nanny. “I know how stubbornness runs in Schnee veins, so I’ll spare my voice trying to convince you otherwise.” She drained the last of her wine. “But allow me to offer you a few hours of hospitality. A warm shower, at the very least.”

To her own surprise, Winter found her concerns rooted not in the erotic implications - which she found genuinely intriguing - but in more mundane security issues. With her luggage checked all she had with her was a leather-bound attaché case, which needed a PIN code and a scan of her thumbprint to unlock. She doubted Cinder would be so crass as to try to glean its contents, but the risk-assessment was performed unconsciously. She had a passport and a few travel documents, a small makeup kit, some toiletries, and a laptop secured by so many layers of encryption it would stump even the boys at Fort Meade. And she doubted Cinder was going to go leafing through her wallet.

It was an acceptable risk, in other words.

“If you insist, then I will concede,” said Winter, ignoring the small smile of satisfaction on the other woman’s face. She reached into her wallet and slapped a few high-denomination bills on the bar top, more than enough to cover their drinks. She caught the way Emerald’s eyes widened a little at the colorful bills she had unthinkingly laid down.

“To your room, then?” asked Winter straightening out nigh-invisible creases in her suit’s jacket. She had meticulous attention to detail, even in the judgement of drill sergeants whose standards you were never supposed to meet.

“I’ll…just… go find whatever bench Merc crashed on,” said Emerald, awkwardly excusing herself. The dejection was plain on her face, and Winter couldn’t suppress a fleeting sensation of _schadenfreude_. It was petty, to enjoy being chosen for company over another, but Cinder had that effect on people. Seductive, hypnotic, intoxicating…there was a reason people simply _yearned_ for her presence.

“That would be best,” Cinder replied, disinterestedly. She switched to a lilting language that even Winter couldn’t identify – Swahili, perhaps, or maybe Kinyarwanda? – speaking a few short sentences to her minion. Emerald nodded, but faux enthusiasm could not mask her disappointment as she scurried off.

“Emerald has her uses, but she requires careful oversight,” said Cinder, after they’d left the bar and the green-haired girl’s earshot. The airport terminal was still packed to capacity but barely seemed alive, most everyone trying to steal a few hours of sleep on the seats and the floors.

“And if I were to suggest that some of her uses included keeping a bed warm…”

“Then I would accuse you of lacking tact,” replied Cinder, with a knowing smile. “But a Schnee’s manners are never less than impeccable, are they?”

“Or so my Father would delude himself,” Winter answered. If only her etiquette tutors could have witnessed what happened when the Schnee family dined alone.

“On the subject of family, how is Weiss? Adjusting to life at Beacon?”

Winter came to a halt, forcing Cinder to circle back around to her. “My _sister_ is of no interest to you, Cinder,” she declared, her tone as sharp and cold as an icicle. Her fingers curled into a fist without thought, ready to choke. “Nor will she ever be.”

Cinder acknowledged the misstep with a slight bow of her head. “Of course. My apologies, Winter,” she said, her tone perfectly sincere. “Idle curiosity run amok.”

Winter contented herself with the apology, and the two resumed their trek. As dastardly as Cinder was, Winter doubted she wanted a Schnee as an enemy. If Cinder knew half as much as she insinuated about Winter’s days with the Agency then she’d know of the bodies that had been left in her wake - from the Empty Quarter to the streets of Karachi to the lawless bowels of the Amazon.

A shuttle bus from the hotel shunted them the short distance from the airport terminal. They were exposed to the elements for only a few fleeting seconds, winds and snow flaying their skins in less than a minute. Cinder seemed indifferent to the cold, but Winter positively basked in its sting.

The hotel was little farther than the other side of the airport parking lot, and was by any appraisal perfectly serviceable. Winter had slept in palaces and barracks, and everywhere in-between. As easy as it was for her to return to the aristocratic mindset of her youth it was now merely a facet of her psyche. There would always be a part of her mind that fretted over the arrangements of napkins and doilies, though it now competed with the part that saw only fields of fire and defensible positions.

She wondered idly what would happen if Cinder was dropped into a rustic campsite, whether her composure and demeanor would hold up deprived of her luxurious props. Regrettably, she doubted she’d have the opportunity to find out anytime soon.

The suite was as spacious and luxurious as Winter could have hoped for, though the absence of a second bed immediately caught her eye. A half-dozen pieces of luggage cluttered up one corner of the room – their volume was not particularly surprising, but the absence of any recognizable label was. For all her conspicuous consumption, Cinder never seemed to care much for brands.

“I hate to be the dog pulling back the wizard’s curtain, but I have to ask how you managed such a room.”

Cinder waved her hand, her gaze never drifting from the mirror she was fixing her appearance before. “I reserved it before I arrived, as a contingency.” She gestured towards the window, now caked in snow. “A contingency plan I had the misfortune of exercising.”

Winter _hmm’d_ a little at that. Even for someone as obsessed with preparedness as she was, the idea of reserving a hotel room for an unneeded night simply in the slim chance of an emergency… She shrugged. Her family had its share of wasteful spending habits, and she was in no position to preach frugality.

“I _will_ be collecting on your offer of a shower,” said Winter, once she finished taking in her surroundings.

“By all means,” Cinder replied, seemingly disinterested. Winter puzzled a minute over Cinder’s quietness – how rarely did the woman pass up an opportunity for innuendo? – but returned to the task at hand. She really _did_ crave a shower, even if her appearance remained nothing less than immaculate.

The bathroom was large enough to warrant a small antechamber, a pane of frosted glass separating it from the toilet and shower. Winter disrobed with mechanical efficiency, neatly folding the components of her suit. Her undergarments were similarly discarded, Winter idly wondering what comment Cinder would have for the plainness of her intimates.

The room was fogged with steam seconds after she spun the taps open. Showering for more than three or four minutes still seemed like a luxury to her, the habits of barrack life having remained imprinted on Winter long after she left the service. Her own showers were usually stark and efficient affairs, squeezed into pre-dawn mornings in the wake of her daily exercise regimen. But tonight, as Cinder had so aptly put it, was a night of indulgences.

She heard the outer door slide open and shut, and her curiosity was piqued when no further intrusion was made. She may have remained ambivalent about Cinder Fall as a _person_ , but the enigmatic woman could not possibly have missed how her allure had hooked the Schnee. She couldn't imagine Cinder having developed cold feet, nor did the woman have a reputation for puritanism. Winter had heard more than a fair share of snide comments about the short dresses and stiletto heels the consultant invariable wore, and the insinuations of what she would do to get a client. No one had ever once produced a shred of evidence that Cinder’s services extended into the erotic, but the jealous and the fearful spread their rumors all the same.

Winter concluded her shower in solitude, surprised and perhaps just a little disappointed. She used a hand towel to de-fog an oval on the room’s mirror, checking her appearance with just slightly more effort than her usual detachment. Even deprived of her makeup kit there was no denying the beauty of Winter Schnee, her high cheekbones and svelte physique, the alabaster hair that had been her birthright. Her body had lost none of its muscle in her years in the private sector, nor had her icy gaze grown any less penetrating.

She toweled off efficiently, no longer waiting for a visitor to join her, enjoyable as the cliché might have been. Only when she was dry did she realize what had happened – her suit had been removed, and a silk white bathrobe left in its place. She almost scoffed at that – there wasn’t a chance in hell that _that_ garment came with the hotel room – but she decided to follow the script Cinder was dictating all the same.

The bathrobe was neither particularly revealing nor wholly modest, the fabric ending a few inches above her knee, the lapels covering her breasts while still doing an excellent job of teasing them. She didn’t bother tying her hair back into a bun or ponytail, letting the still-wet strands cling to her body.

Cinder was waiting for her, of course, seated on the edge of the bed as if she didn’t have a care in the world, one leg crossed over the other. She was conspicuously scrutinizing nails already manicured to perfection, though the smile on her face was unmistakable. “I hope you don’t mind, Winter, I took the liberty of sending your clothes for dry cleaning,” she said, finally looking up from her own hand.

“One might say that was rather presumptive,” replied Winter, keeping her voice calm and cold. “Particularly for my undergarments.”

“ _Surely_ you can do without them for a few hours?” The grin had become positively predatory now. “I was promised a _very_ quick turnaround on the laundry.”

“And how _fortunate_ am I that you have a bathrobe in my size,” Winter replied, taking a small step towards the edge of the bed. “What is this, Victoria’s Secret?”

Her guess was greeted with a derisive snort. “Your ignorance speaks volumes, Winter,” Cinder teased, “I merely thought you would prefer it to what the hotel provided.” She paused, smirking slightly. “That the Schnee bloodline should produce such a Spartan…”

Winter ignored the barb. “And how _effortlessly_ you seek to unbalance me. Now I’m alone, in your room, with nothing but your bathrobe for coverings and your word that my suit will return.” Another step forward. “How masterfully you’ve tried to make me _depend_ on you.”

Cinder was unfazed by the accusation. “As I said, I intended no discomfort.” That predatory smile returned. “Though if you dislike the bathrobe, you are of course free to discard it.”

Cinder remained seated on the edge of the bed, and with one long stride Winter was towering over her. The positioning was unusual – Winter would’ve thought someone as used to dominance and control as Cinder would never have allowed herself to be literally overshadowed. But there was no unease or nervousness in her posture, Cinder merely craning her neck to stare into Winter’s ice-blue eyes.

In one fluid motion Winter undid the knot cinching her robe, leaving the strands of the belt to hang loosely from her hips. The garment still covered her breasts, but only barely. “Perhaps you overestimated how self-conscious I would be of my nudity, how vulnerable it would make me feel,” Winter murmured, one hand drifting to Cinder’s hair. The other woman made no move to intercept her, her breaths slowing in response to Winter’s touch.

“Perhaps I did,” conceded Cinder. “Though I would never mistake you for a shy maiden.”

With little more than a shrug Winter let the bathrobe pool at her feet, standing unabashed and unashamed before her hunter. Winter's pride was undiminished, she stood fearless in her nudity, like the marble statutes of Antiquity.

“Tell me,” spoke Winter, her words quiet but her tone steely and demanding, “am I everything you thought I'd be?”

“I’d compare you to Aphrodite,” mused Cinder, “though I think you’d prefer Athena.” Winter’s hand found her face, cradling her cheek. “Or perhaps Apollo.”

Winter’s hand drifted south, finding Cinder’s sternum, and she _pushed_ the woman flat atop the mattress. Cinder acquiesced to her force, sliding back to make room for her partner to climb atop her, Winter peering down like a carnivore at its kill. But Cinder would never allow herself to be hapless prey, one leg finding the space between Winter’s thighs, the touch of her stockings electrifying and intoxicating.

Their first kiss was rough and artless, a wordless struggle for dominance as lips and tongues collided with little regard for pleasure or pain. Cinder’s nails dug into Winter’s back, threatening to draw blood. Winter let out little more than a muted grunt at Cinder’s piercing touch, focusing instead on finding a rhythm to their passions.

Winter began tugging at Cinder’s dress a minute later, giving the woman mere moments to slide out of it lest it be ripped from her entirely. The dress didn't allow for a bra, leaving Cinder's torso bare, though she was not yet entirely nude. The garter belt would have looked pornographic on almost anyone else, but quite simply _belonged_ on the consultant.

…for a few more minutes, at least, to Winter’s mind…

“You let me be the top so easily,” whispered Winter, as their bodies pressed against one another. “How out of character.”

Cinder’s nails dug deeper into her skin, but the pain was euphoric. “If this is what you consider dominance,” purred Cinder in reply. Her laugh that followed was almost a cackle.

Winter growled at the taunt, her hand finding the space between her host’s thighs. Cinder let out a second purr of pleasure at the touch, but gave no sign of surrendering herself just yet.

Winter fiddled with the fastenings holding up Cinder’s stockings, only a lifetime of self-control keeping her from fumbling like an overwhelmed teenager. Cinder _groaned_ slightly as their bodies parted, for the few short seconds it took Winter to strip the woman beneath her to her panties. The lacy undergarments were yanked down a moment later, roughly and without permission, though Cinder was no more vulnerable to her own nakedness than Winter had been.

“Would you be insulted if I asked if you were clean?” inquired Winter, lowering herself so her eyes were level with Cinder’s bosom.

“Would you be insulted if I didn’t think it necessary to inquire in return?” teased Cinder, unable to withhold the swipe at Winter’s near-celibacy even in the throes of passion. Winter scowled, digging her nails into Cinder’s thigh in retaliation. Cinder’s face contorted at the pressure, though out of pleasure or pain her tormentor couldn’t tell. The consultant’s face relaxed a moment later, as Winter’s breaths landed on her skin. “I can assure you that I take excellent care of my health, and my partners are far fewer than you’ve been led to believe.”

Winter rewarded her answer with a touch a moment later, fingers tracing elongated lines along Cinder’s folds. Her years spent in the military had left Winter with little bedroom experience; she had had no desire to patron the local brothels, even had she been willing to take the risk to her career. She’d learned simply to smother her desires the same way she fought any other imperfection in her body or mind. An illicit video or a ‘romantic’ ebook were the peaks of her indulgences, justified as necessities to keep her hormones from becoming distracting.

But if Cinder had any further commentary on her inexperience she kept it to herself, drawing Winter’s fingers into her with wordless beckoning. She lost none of her beauty in the heat of passion, the fire within her escaping to the surface for a few fleeting minutes. Winter crouched low to add her tongue to the mix, and was rewarded by fingers clawing at her head. Winter hadn’t the experience to prolong the sensation with tantalizing touches - even in bed she approached things as challenges to be overcome rather than moments to be enjoyed.

Cinder’s legs wrapping around her was all the signal she received, the recipient of her efforts having made no noises louder than labored breaths. Some distant part of Winter’s mind was disappointed that she’d hadn’t made Cinder call out to the Pantheon in orgasmic ecstasy, but merely seeing the woman limp and sticky with sweat was triumph enough.

“If you fall asleep now,” whispered Winter, drawing herself up beside Cinder’s limp form, “I am going to be _extremely_ disappointed in you.”

Eyes still shut, Cinder’s lips formed a smile. “You _wound_ me, Winter,” she chided, lethargically drawing herself upright. “I was merely savoring the fruits of your labors.” She brushed strands of black hair out her face, absent-mindedly. “What you lack in technique you certainly make up for in passion.”

“Oh good, I was waiting with bated breath for your review,” replied Winter, dryly. Though truth be told being informed of her adequacy had lifted the lightest of weights off her chest. “Perhaps something for your Emerald to aspire to.”

Cinder let out a faint _tsk_ , though her smile never wavered. “Her heart’s in the right place, but she tries too hard,” she noted, just a hint of remorse in her voice. “Though I’m certain she’d be interested in a threesome, if that would be more to your liking.”

“I’m afraid I share neither your decadence nor your depravity,” replied Winter, but despite her icy tone there was no missing the jest.

“A shame,” conceded Cinder, tracing a finger along Winter’s thigh. “Though more her loss than your own.”

Winter leaned back against the bed’s headboard, her knees falling lazily apart. “How arrogant, to imply that you can do the work of two women.”

“I assure you, having my undivided attention more than makes up for the loss,” replied Cinder, not bothering to refute the accusation. She pressed herself against the mattress, her head between Winter’s legs. “Dare I ask how long it’s been since another woman last took my place?”

Winter retaliated with a soft slap to Cinder's cheek, the playful reprimand eliciting a smile. “Not all of us see hedonism as our _raison d'être_.”

“And you imply I am so shallow?” Cinder's tone was wounded, but her smile still remained. Her fingers began kneading lazy patterns in Winter’s skin. “I merely sate my own desires more readily than you do.”

Winter could only grunt in reply – the sharp edges of her mind were beginning to dull with Cinder’s touch. A touch so unlike her own, usually hurried and artless in the quiet hours of the night when sleep refused to claim her. Cinder could have spent an eternity merely outlining her contours, smooth and slender fingers tracing lines like a calligraphist. The infrequent _prick_ of a nail blurred the distinction between pleasure and pain, coaxing her body to a hypersensitive frenzy.

When Cinder's tongue finally lapped against her skin Winter couldn’t stifle a gasp. Her own sex life seemed a lifetime ago, the sensory details little more than faded memories, from the time before she'd embraced ‘The Ice Queen’. And Cinder was so dissimilar to those fragments that she could remember. Cinder moved slowly and deliberately, unafraid and unconcerned, her tongue slipping deeper and deeper but never bringing Winter over the edge, like some mockery of Zeno’s Arrow.

“You _need_ this,” murmured Cinder, two fingers replacing her tongue while she withdrew her head. Winter refused to acknowledge her. “One wonders what will be left of you if you continue to shed so much of what makes us human."

“I’m _hardly_ a machine,” Winter growled in retort, the diminishment of sensation giving her enough presence of mind to banter.

“Though not for lack of trying,” teased Cinder, slipping in another finger. Winter sunk her teeth into her lip, throbbing pain preferable to abject surrender.

“You’re taking too long.” The words were spoken with the edge of a threat, from a woman who _despised_ being toyed with. “Fuck me or get out.”

Cinder _grinned_. “I will, of course,” she murmured, drawing her head a breath apart from Winter’s. “But first… I want to hear you _beg_ for it.”

The pressure between her legs was almost enough to overwhelm Winter, a pressure threatening to burst a dam that had been strained for far too long. _Almost_. Winter’s eyes shot open and she _stared_ into the molten gold of Cinder’s, her icy gaze unblinking and unyielding. A free hand shot out and grasped Cinder’s raven mane, tugging at its roots.

Cinder didn't wince or flinch, even in a grasp strident enough to make a lesser woman cry. At no point did she abandon her ministrations, maintaining a pressure on the edge of release long enough to bring unbidden tears to Winter’s eyes.

“You overplayed your hand,” Winter growled. To her own distant surprise she found she could stand tall in the face of Cinder’s assaults, against the waves of ecstatic pleasure and agonizing pain that came crashing against her body. For whatever Fate or the gods threw at her, Winter's will was steel.

“It seems I did,” Cinder mused after half a minute, though her tone was more serene than annoyed. “But I keep my promises all the same.”

Winter’s ecstasy was all the richer for the taste of victory that accompanied it. And Cinder’s tongue was no less enthusiastic for her defeat, her gifts no less pleasurable. She drew the sensation out for as long as humanly possible, leaving Winter in a timeless state of euphoria.

The orgasm that eventually came was quite possibly the longest in Winter’s life, elongated and extended by Cinder’s otherworldly artistry. Whether they had spent minutes in bed together or hours, Winter could neither tell nor care.

“Your arrogance will be the death of you,” Winter promised, as her breaths slowly returned to normal. Her head remained pressed against a pillow, closed eyes pointed towards the ceiling.

Cinder sighed. “I suppose I could hardly have expected you to be the type to ask for cuddles next.”

Winter snorted. “I would like to think you know me better than that.” She forced herself to sit upright. As powerful an experience as sex with Cinder Fall had been, the idea of cuddling with her chilled Winter to her core. Sex she could rationalize as transactional, a _quid pro quo_ scratching of itches. Spending the night together… Winter hadn’t shared a bed for a decade, and had no desire to start again now. Certainly not with _her_.

A knock on the door interrupted her ruminations. When Cinder made no move to answer it Winter slipped back into her bathrobe, knotting the sash with atypical clumsiness. A hotel bellhop greeted her on the other side, a boy barely out of his teens and completely incapable of keeping the shock from his face. Winter took the dry cleaning bags from his hand wordlessly, closing the door a moment later. If he’d wanted a tip, he should have remembered where her eyes were.

“They _did_ promise one-hour dry cleaning,” Cinder remarked, not missing the expression of mild surprise on Winter’s face. “And your suit will be easier to launder than my dress.”

Winter ignored her and began pulling out her clothes, slipping into them like they were plates of armor. Boyshorts, bra, socks camisole, pants, jacket. Only her shoes had never left the room, heeled boots that looked more martial than fashionable.

Cinder rose from the bed, unhurried, not bothering to scavenge for undergarments. Their roles were reversed from where they had been an hour prior, Winter now fully clothed before her naked host. Cinder mirrored her fearlessness.

“I’d extend an offer for you to join my firm, but I know you’d just reject it,” said Cinder, sounding almost as if she was speaking to herself. Winter made no move or noise to disabuse her of her assumption. “It’s truly a shame that we can never be partners.” And Winter could not help but wonder at how many meanings of the word Cinder had intended.

“The gods thought otherwise,” repeated Winter, though there was little vigor in her voice. She collected her attaché case, spending a few seconds inventorying its contents.

Looking up, Winter caught for the first time an emotion she was _certain_ Cinder hadn’t faked or forced. It took her a moment to discern the trigger, and when she did she arched an eyebrow. “How strange… Cinder Fall believes in destiny.”

The look Cinder shot her was _dark_ , not one of the simulacrums of emotion she’d expressed throughout the night. And it was an undeniably _ugly_ expression, rooted in a history Winter knew she’d never learn. They stood in silence for several seconds, Winter genuinely unsure as to what Cinder would do next.

“Well then,” Cinder finally said, her voice flat and neutral, “until our stars cross again.”

Winter nodded, silently. The sense of victory she had felt had long since evaporated, replaced by an unspeakable _unease_. She’d long desired to get beneath Cinder’s armor, though having found a chink in it she was no longer so certain.

She swung the door open and strode out into the hallway without another word, eyes forward all the way to the bar.

By the time she made it, she was ready for another drink.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments and reviews keep me safe, sane, and motivated. Believability of the AU? Atmosphere and ambiance? Characterization? Dynamics? Smut? (It feels like a while since I've written either smut ~~or "romance procedurals" as Pope+William+T+Wodium so beautifully put it~~ [I am possibly misusing that term, mea culpa].) Also please tell me I didn't butcher the POV like I normally do…
> 
> Cinder Fall continues to be one of my favorite _RWBY_ characters, even if I'll never be able to forgive her for killing Best Girl Pyrrha Nikos. No points for noticing that this is one of my not-so-infrequent attempts to mimic the style of [CourierNinetyTwo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CourierNinetyTwo/pseuds/CourierNinetyTwo), following my earlier efforts with _[The Thief's Joker](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5620564)_ (Gelato) and _[Tatami and Steel](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6801349)_ (Greek Fire). I'd have to cite pretty much the entirety of the [Mafia Blake AU](https://archiveofourown.org/series/97778) as inspiration, particularly _[And the Raven Shall Dwell In It](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1982865)_ and _[An Abode for Jackals](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1718627)_ , along with the not-technically-in-series _[The Limits of the Page](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5084050)_. And of course the only other Cinder/Winter fic presently on AO3, _[The Mirror of Reason](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5683282)_. (What can I say, I _really_ like C92's Cinder). I'm still not there, but _one_ day, that quality of prose will be mine…
> 
> Anyways, this work was self-indulgent on _so_ many levels. I'm pretty sure I love Modern AUs more than life itself at this point. And _yes_ , I realize a defense contractor isn't the perfect real-world parallel to Winter Schnee's canonical counterpart, but I kind of needed it for the story. And _yes_ , it's a crack and/or trash ship, but I think it has some legs…
> 
> And again, I always welcome comments and reviews! Or hit me up at [/u/pvoberstein](https://www.reddit.com/user/pvoberstein/) on reddit. I get lonely.


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